Saturday, June 2, 2018

In 1991, to counter the popularity of Nintendo’s flagship character Super Mario, Sega released a game on their Genesis 16-bit console starring a blue creature that would soon take its place as one of the faces of the entirety of videogame history. It was “Sonic the Hedgehog”, and he has carried Sega to its greatest heights in game console development, even when the company stopped competing hardware-wise to become solely a developer. Sonic also got animated cartoons and comic books. But now the Blue Blur is ready to hit the big screen, and he will have prominent stars for company.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Paramount Pictures is casting actor James Marsden for their film adaptation of “Sonic the Hedgehog”, due to release late next year. Touted as a hybrid live-action/CGI movie, this would most likely explain why the studio is getting a current cast member of HBO’s sci-fi western “Westworld” to join this project; unless of course he is being touted to voice the fastest hedgehog of all. Marsden currently plays Teddy Flood in that show, slated to perhaps take the place of “Game of Thrones” as the network’s cash cow once its final season airs in 2019.

Prior to “Westworld” however, Marsden may have been more popularly known to movie audiences as Scott Summers/Cyclops in the first three “X-Men” films from 20th Century Fox directed by Bryan Singer. He also dabbled in comedic fare when he portrayed the bumbling Prince Edward in Disney’s “Enchanted” opposite Amy Adams. He also has experience acting in movies with CGI characters, as seen in 2011’s family comedy “Hop” from Universal Pictures.

Paramount has also begun the foundations of a production team behind the camera for “Sonic the Hedgehog”. Its producers include Neal H. Moritz, Dmitri Johnson and Dan Jevons, with “Deadpool” director Tim Miller serving as executive producer alongside toby Ascher. An initial “Sonic” draft co-written by Patrick Casey and Josh Miller was updated by Oren Uziel, with the director’s chair going to Jeff Fowler, who helmed the 2005 Oscar-nominated animation short “Gopher Broke”. This will be Fowler’s first feature-length project.

This is the first time Sonic will be headlining in a full-length movie under any medium for all of the Sega character’s almost-three decades of existence. Most of the producers such as Moritz and Miller were retained from when Paramount took up the movie rights since it was put on turnaround by previous production studio Sony Entertainment (Columbia Pictures). “Sonic the Hedgehog” will premiere in cinemas on November 15, 2019.